Cost: $11,559. This courthouse was built with native stone in
eight months. This two- story courthouse had a foundation two and
one half feet deep, a fireproof vault, and four fireplaces on

the first floor with flues for stoves on the second floor.

In the Spring of 1883 a 190 feet square white fence was
erected around the court house at a cost of $989.50. Before the
end of the summer a chain was added around the fence to which
horses could be hitched.

Following the loss of this courthouse on 5 February, 1886, the
residents of southwestern Hamilton County petitioned for an election
to consider moving the courthouse nearer them. The

proposed town site of the new countyseat was eight miles south of
Hamilton near Shive on the John Dillard Hunt ranch.

This movement drew much support and an election to
consider relocating the county seat was called for 4 May, 1886. In
an effort to retain Hamilton as the countyseat, Hamilton County

Commissioners, Simpson Loyd, A. J. Forester, R. Stinnett, J.
P. Grundy, and County Judge C. W. Cotton negotiated an
agreement with the voters of the southern part of the county to allow
the future Mills County to have a strip of land along the
southern border of Hamilton County moving the county line from
Sims Creek, seven miles south of Center City to McGirk. In the
election Hamilton received 878 votes, "Pegtown" (near
Shive) received 689 votes, and Piggtown (Aleman) received 3 votes.

This was probably an upstairs room on the NW corner of the
square in a building occupied by J. M. Williams and Sons Hardware
which collapsed in December, 1976. The county judge, sheriff, and
a few other county officials moved their offices to the stone jail.

9. Second Courthouse, 22 February, 1887--

Hamilton County Courthouse,
February, 1887

Original cost: $30,700. Courthouse was constructed with
native limestone.

Cost of extensive remodeling 1932: $55,754. The
limestone came from the area which became the city dump grounds
for many years. Voters decided on 28 February, 1931, to approve bonds
of add wings on the north and the south sides of the 1887
courthouse and to add a basement. Confident that the bond would pass,
the Commissioners Court had already started digging the basement
before the bonds were approved. Remodeling began in 1931and was
completed and occupied by 13 June, 1932. During the
remodeling Courthouse activities were conducted at: